Arse Poetica
R. Zamora Linmark
It’s already four-thirty and Bukowski’s
whores and liquor store poets are far
from those pre-twilight frustrations
and bedroom boredom that once led
to grandstanding and gratuitous verses
with internal rhymes as bonuses ‘til
this day they stick to my mother’s memory
like smegma stuck between dilemma
and pop’s pubic lice always nice on
jasmine rice or is there hope stronger
than a rope for our pope making art
always begins with sweet scent of F
said Plato or was it Bluto in a couplet
hairpiece best covers herpes and haikus
red lipstick on front tooth slightly
chipped seventy-year-old Lolitas
explosive and sexhausted titles of
B-lyrical odes “Gospel According
to Luke Loser” and “Who Won the War
Between Gentile and Genital Warts”
alliterations enough for everyone
even the window washer feels sorry
working overtime scrubbing grime
and bacon grease off my studio window
so I can see beyond the bald voyeur
across my building scratching to sniff
his dangling balls as he watches me
scrape white meat off an Oreo cliché
I wish it came from the passing cloud
of cellulites a cue to end the sun
salutation and throw in the dash –
R. Zamora Linmark is the author of three collections of poetry, Prime Time Apparitions, The Evolution of a Sigh, and Drive-By Vigils, all from Hanging Loose Press. He also published two novels,Rolling the R's, which he'd adapted for the stage, and Leche. The poems that appear in this issue are from his next collection tentatively titled et al.
